Slashdot Mirror
Turn-Key Linux Audio
gmaestro writes "The Turn-Key Linux Audio project at the Eastman Computer Music Center has released it's first instant linux audio workstation package. Simply download onto your Mandrake workstation, untar and type # ./install.sh."
I've been waiting for a package like this for 4 years. I can't believe someone actually did it. Just one more application needs to arrive and I'll leave Windows behind forever. What is that application?
Does it really matter what my particular missing app is? Everyone that can't migrate yet has one. I suppose my point is this just goes to show that eventually all the missing apps will be there and then:
IT'S A FREE SOFTWARE WORLD BABY!
Linux has nothing to compare to Finale, Sibelius, or Score. This is the gaping hole in Linux audio software, and the reason most musicians cannot switch completely to Linux.
Lilypad, etc. are not professional quality notation tools.
WINE has trouble with non-text fonts like Maestro which Finale uses.
I know that the large frothing masses LIKE to worry about libraries and dependancy, but there are also a lot of us who like ease of use. With bandwidth and high capacity media so cheap these days, I believe most if not all programs should be self contained non-dependant entities. Just like Office for Mac's, one folder drag it over and run. Or even better, the Phoenix browser... fully self contained AND small. I think this is the future of software, and Linux should really jump on this if it wants to be a player in the desktop market. (not trolling, just looking for some discussion)
www.GamezCore.com For Hardcore PS2 Gamerz : By Hardcore PS2 Gamerz
BUT, don't many of these applications overlap in functionality? Personally I use Audacity and Sweep, and these do the same thing to some extent. Both have their tweaks, but anyway. While this is good for me, it seems like a potential source of grievance for some people.
It would appear that what would really be useful is putting alot of energy into one program to do most of the things users want, instead of many that each do one of these things.
Not everybody markets to the same market. The only ways to increase market share are:
- Price
- Features
- Promotion
- FUD
If you are a board manufacturer, and you can move an extra 100,000 units by making sure that your components are linux-compatible without increasing your cost, you're going to do it.It's nice to walk into a store and see motherboards that list linux as a supported OS. This wasn't the case 5 years ago. Watch what happens in the next 5 years.
Besides, 95% of the planet doesn't use Windows. 90% of the planet don't own a computer - and they are the prime breeding ground for linux. As for what you might have meant - "95% of computers run Windows" - that's never been true either.
I think sometime in the future chipset manufacturers - not motherboard manufacturers - are going to produce decent drivers.
Perhaps if you were a bit more specific on the shortcomings, we could have a more engaging discussion.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
- MIDI workstation: logic audio | cubase | or even (puke) cakewalk
- Powerful trackers: buzz | FT2 | IT
- Easy to use authoring tools: fruityloops | rebirth | reason
- Advanced outboard softsynths: reaktor | absynth | Q1 | grainlab
- Mastering tools: tracktor
- Powerful sample editing tools: cool edit/96/pro | soundforge
Basically, Linux has nothing to offer someone who does audio, as far as I know, besides playing CDs.I know there are some authoring tools in the works, but, also afaik, they're not moving fast, octal for example. My guess is, Linux is at least 5 years away from general purpose authoring, if it ever gets there.
Btw, I'd be glad to be wrong, if someone would only point out the links to *stable* and *feature-filled* tools.
_khl
This is exactly the sort of thing that will enable Linux to become a viable alternative for audio production. This statement may be anathema to many Linux masochists, but as a producer and musician I want a product that installs with a mouse click (or single, simple command line statement)and works. No hours of reseach and piling through newsgroups trying to find what little dependecies are unresolved. No having some uberuser tell me that all I need to do is write a device driver real quick and I'll be ready to go. Dealing with pro audio on Mac and Windows boxen is still troublesome now, even for those of use that know what the hell we're doing. On Linux, it simply is not an option unless you are highly skilled with the OS to begin with, and 99% of the musicians, producers, and audio engineers out there are not. Whatever failures it might have, whatever it might lack right now, however much you might want to bitch about it, Eastman's work here is exactly what Linux Pro Audio needs if it is EVER going to be a viable alternative to M$ or Apple. I'm looking forward to being able to type format c:. This brings me one step closer.
Don't Panic!
That's the only explanation I can come up with for allowing -- nay, encouraging -- a culture of editorial lassitude which prizes the ability of the subliterate to fling up articles and shits on the ability of the literate to read them without continually having to stop and reparse.
Every one of those stupid misplaced apostrophes throws an exception in your built-in interpreter. If there are so many programmers in this community, why is isn't there a call for tighter code in this realm?
For all the nifty tricks embodied in Slashcode, the coolest yet would be a "demoronizer" for apostrophes. But it won't happen until there's a change in culture...just look at how Joe Clark was treated recently after he went to the trouble of EDITING the questions he replied to: "Whatever." -- roblimo
I don't have too many excess cycles to burn untangling atrocities while reading what purports to be a news site. Clear, concise text goes a long way toward justifying more than a cursory glance at an article.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Of course, the degree to which people insist on releasing packages that depend on development/CVS versions of other packages is most of the problem. Somehow, given the 'typical' linux developers, I don't expect that to change any time soon.
Four-speaker support is only part of the problem!
There's a licensing issue with the software/firmware needed to decode the surround signal. You're running into IntProp disclosure territory here.